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Before

John T. Hitchner

Look at us:
Mothers and fathers,
sisters and brothers,
cousins of all ages
on Nana and Granddad’s front steps.
Before the Fourth of July parade
we faced Uncle Steve’s lens,
squinted and smiled
a minute’s moment
tucked away until a funeral.

Aunt Ginny:
So the story goes,
in satin she greeted the mailman,
accepted bills
and blushed him on his way.

There’s Uncle Phil,
before he went to pieces
and scuffed state hospital halls.

Here, my cousins:
Jean and Joan dressed me
for living room vaudeville.
Bobby fooled me with rum
instead of root beer,
and Joey wrote letters from Nam
before he tripped a wire.

And Dad, before he lost my name,
and Mom, who found it for him.

The dead and living voices
who still laugh,
still whisper and wail
like nails that will not, do not,
surrender.

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